


A sinner

by Howling_Harpy



Series: Eyes of the beholder [4]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Hospitals, Internalized Homophobia, Letters, M/M, Recovery, Religious Guilt, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26063308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howling_Harpy/pseuds/Howling_Harpy
Summary: While working on his recovery at a hospital Gordon got unexpectedly company of Shifty Powers, whose way home had been cut short by an automobile accident.
Relationships: Shifty Powers/Floyd Talbert
Series: Eyes of the beholder [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1890967
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	A sinner

**Author's Note:**

> Bless whoever prompted Shifty/Talbert! It's such a small ship but so good, and this little fic was a real joy to write.

Even though Walter had a lot of work to do, lying in a hospital bed was still a bore. He hadn’t even counted the hours spent staring at the ceiling while squeezing a rubber ball in his hand and passing it from one hand to the other, and between those boring hours were the long, painful ones he spent shuffling his feet and lifting himself from the chair and hopping to sit on a table and then back to the chair again. 

Still, he couldn’t say he was happy when a familiar face took the bed next to him. 

Shifty looked almost exactly like Walter remembered him from Bastogne, albeit tan instead of pale, and he was certain that wasn’t a good thing. The poor boy looked downright miserable, didn’t say a word and stared into the ceiling in much the same way Walter remembered from his own early recovering days.

Nurse Crane gave Shifty’s head a motherly pat that he didn’t react to before turning to Walter. “He was in quite the automobile accident, poor lad. I talked the doctor into putting him here since you were in the same unit, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, we know each other,” Walter said. He hadn’t yet figured if he was happy to see Shifty, but knew that she had done the right thing bringing him to him. “How bad is it?”

“A broken arm and a concussion, but the worst is the broken pelvis. He’s going to have to stay very still for a long time, and he’s most likely to receive more surgery. I thought you’d keep him focused on the recovery and maybe cheer him up a bit,” nurse Crane explained while filling out Shifty’s chart. “He’s on a quite big dose of morphine for now, but do try chatting a bit.”

“Sure,” Walter agreed, and the nurse left them with a bright smile.

Walter turned his attention back to Shifty. On a second look he indeed looked more than simply depressed, he looked drugged. He had a tube attached in the back of his hand and it was steadily feeding him fluid from a bag, a hefty amount of morphine no doubt with it. 

“Hey, Shifty,” Walter called, trying to get his attention, “hey, remember me? It’s Smokey. How did a pretty thing like you end up in a dump like this, huh?”

There was no response. Not even an eye twitched to signal that any of Walter’s words had registered to Shifty, his gaze dull and his blinking slow like he was nearly asleep. 

Walter kept talking anyway. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay, buddy. The worst thing here is the boredom, but that guys like you and I can handle, right? You just got to be a bit patient and your body’s going to take care of itself. Mine sure does. See, I can move my arms, even lift my legs a bit. I’m going to walk out of here sometime soon, and you’re coming with me, you hear me?”

Shifty might have, might have not. He gave no indication to either direction, but Walter talked anyway. 

For the first four days there Shifty drifted in and out of consciousness, and nurses kept a close eye on his vitals. With his concussion they were worried about his constant sleepiness and the first twenty-four hours Shifty wasn’t allowed to sleep more than three hours in a row, but after that they wrote his sleepiness off as a by-product of his heavy pain medication.

Nurses kept a close eye on his blood pressure and breathing, but otherwise let him be. Sure, they fed him, cleaned him, and asked him about the pain whenever he was awake, but Shifty didn’t react much to anything. Walter kept talking to him, and even though it was never certain if he heard him or not, talking to a familiar person eased his own loneliness and boredom too.

After a week Walter got a letter. He had heard from the guys regularly of late, Lipton writing him the most, but this time he got a letter from Talbert. It wasn’t that surprising, they were good buddies and Walter was certain they’d see each other back home, but this time the letter was short and, there was no better word to it, odd.

_“Dear Smokey,  
I hope you’re well or at least better than last time, keeping up with the recovery, flirting with that old nurse of your ward and so on and so on. You’re in our thoughts, I’m rooting for you, the usual._

_I’m actually writing to you to ask a huge favor. No, you can’t ask, no, I won’t explain, at least not now and not in a letter, but please, if you’re a real friend of mine, do this. Alright?_

_Shifty got in a pretty bad accident, I heard. I don’t know anything else except that it was bad, like really bad, and I also know that he’s been taken to the same hospital as you. Now, the favor that I’m asking of you is this: The next paragraph is for Shifty, and you gotta tell him, but don’t ask anything. Not me and not Shifty, okay?_

_Here we go: Shifty, I’m glad you’re alive. You’ll be okay, and I need you to know that whatever it is, no matter how bad or permanent, I don’t care. You’re still the same person, and the most important person too. It can’t be so bad that it would scare me, as long as you’re still you inside. Just take care of yourself, you’re in my thoughts. And also, I swear and cross my heart, there are no girls. I’m gonna write more soon._

_Okay, that’s it. Just get that to Shifty and make sure he understands, and I’ll be in your debt._

_Regards,  
Floyd Talbert”_

It was a curious letter, even for Talbert who had a habit of scribbling down whatever and sending it off without much of a second thought. Walter sensed there was a lot under the surface there, something he didn’t know but what tickled his appetite for gossip, and the only thing that kept him from asking was that the only person he could ask was Shifty, and Shifty was… Well. Shifty was Shifty.

Of course Walter did as he was asked to and read the letter out loud when Shifty seemed more awake than unconscious, but other than opening his eyes and flicking his gaze around a bit Shifty didn’t react to Walter’s words.

Not until in the middle of the night, when Walter was brought out of his slumber by an unusual noise. It was a soft, irregular noise, very quiet but out of place enough to disturb him, and when he woke up enough he realized that Shifty was crying.

“Hey…” Walter started carefully, “hey, Shift, what’s wrong?”

It was almost a full minute of little sniffles and thick gulping sounds and shivering breaths before Shifty got himself together enough to answer: “I want Floyd,” he whimpered.

Walter shrugged with sympathy. “Yeah, you’re not alone with that.”

But Shifty shook his head and brought his healthy hand to wipe his face. Even though the room was dark, the streetlamps gave enough light inside through the blinds that Walter could see the tears still running. 

“I should’ve stayed with him. It’s my fault… All my fault, I was so stupid, so selfish…” Shifty rambled on in a bitter tone.

“Woah, woah, nothing’s your fault, kid. You’re alright, it was an accident, a whole lot of simple bad luck, that’s all!” Walter hurried to interrupt him before he cursed himself deeper into the swamp of despair. 

Again Shifty shook his head, more firmly this time. “No… I was… selfish. I should’ve stayed, but I… I miss home so much… So I left.”

Walter gave a deep sigh. “Shifty, everyone misses home. Anyone would have taken an opportunity to go home, and no one blames you for it.”

“I think God’s punishing me,” Shifty whispered grimly.

Even Walter was speechless for a second. “For missing home?”

“No, for leaving,” Shifty continued in an anxious mutter, “I used to… I used to think it was wrong. That I would be punished for… For other things, with Floyd. I ran away because I was weak, and scared, and selfish, and I wanted to see my mama. And now God’s punishing me for being a selfish coward.”

Walter knew he had heard something very profound just then and he couldn’t just fall back on his usual humorous way of dealing with it. He felt like a priest at a confession and the role was so unfitting for his personality that he was at complete loss of what to do. Desperately Walter thought what Lipton would say to something like that and not for the first time wished he were there to help him. But he wasn’t, so he had to make do by himself.

“Shifty, I’m sure everyone has regrets. I don’t think a single one of us leaves here without wishing that he’d done something differently. I certainly wish I hadn’t made that cup of coffee and that I had stayed lower in my foxhole. There’s no one so good and perfect that he’ll make it through without regrets. And if anyone came up to me and said that he’s totally fine and did everything right, I’d call him a lunatic.”

Shifty was still sniffling, but Walter hoped that the lack of words meant that he was listening.

“No one hates you or blames you,” Walter went on, “and if you’re worried about Tab, don’t be. He wrote to me so that I could tell you that. You hear me? He wrote to me for no other reason than to tell you that he thinks you’re alright no matter what. Now I don’t know about God, but I know Floyd Talbert well enough that I can tell you he won’t take shit from anyone, not even the man upstairs.” 

That got a small hiccup from Shifty that Walter hoped was a sound of amusement. 

“I’m not gonna ask what you think you ought to be punished for, but I can honestly say that I don’t think you deserve it. You’re a right on guy, Shifty,” Walter said and meant it.

In the dark room, Walter could see Shifty wiping away his tears and heard his breathing slowly evening out. He was clearly calming down, thank heaven, as the pits of despair during the small hours were deep ones, and Floyd Talbert wasn’t there to smile and pull him up.


End file.
